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| Christ as Light; How He, and How His Disciples are the Light of the World.
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24. Christ as Light; How
He, and How His Disciples are the Light of the World.
He said, then, that He was the light of the world; and
we have to examine, along with this title, those which are parallel to
it; and, indeed, are thought by some to be not merely parallel, but
identical with it. He is the
true light, and the light of the Gentiles. In the opening of the
Gospel now before us He is the light of men: “That which
was made,”4581
it says, “was
life in Him, and the life was the light of men; and the light shines in
darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.” A little
further on, in the same passage, He is called the true light:4582
“The true light, which lightens
every man, was coming into the world.” In Isaiah, He is the
light of the Gentiles, as we said before. “Behold,4583
I have set Thee for a light of the Gentiles,
that Thou shouldest be for salvation to the end of the
earth.” Now the sensible light of the world is the sun, and
after it comes very worthily the moon, and the same title may be
applied to the stars; but those lights of the world are said in Moses
to have come into existence on the fourth day, and as they shed light
on the things on the earth, they are not the true light. But the
Saviour shines on creatures which have intellect and sovereign reason,
that their minds may behold their proper objects of vision, and so he
is the light of the intellectual world, that is to say, of the
reasonable souls which are in the sensible world, and if there be any
beings beyond these in the world from which He declares Himself to be
our Saviour. He is, indeed, the most determining and
distinguished part of that world, and, as we may say, the sun who makes
the great day of the Lord. In view of this day He says to those
who partake of His light, “Work4584
while it is day; the night cometh when no man can work. As long
as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Then He
says to His disciples,4585
“Ye are the
light of the world,” and “Let your light shine before
men.” Thus we see the Church, the bride, to present an
analogy to the moon and stars, and the disciples have a light, which is
their own or borrowed from the true sun, so that they are able to
illuminate those who have no command of any spring of light in
themselves. We may say that Paul and Peter are the light of the
world, and that those of their disciples who are enlightened
themselves, but are not able to enlighten others, are the world of
which the Apostles were the light. But the Saviour, being the
light of the world, illuminates not bodies, but by His incorporeal
power the incorporeal intellect, to the end that each of us,
enlightened as by the sun, may be able to discern the rest of the
things of the mind. And as when the sun is shining the moon and
the stars lose their power of giving light, so those who are irradiated
by Christ and receive His beams have no need of the ministering
apostles and prophets—we must have courage to declare this
truth—nor of the angels; I will add that they have no need even
of the greater powers when they are disciples of that first-born
light. To those who do not receive the solar beams of Christ, the
ministering saints do afford an illumination much less than the former;
this illumination is as much as those persons can receive, and it
completely fills them. Christ, again, the light of the world, is
the true light as distinguished from the light of sense; nothing that
is sensible is true. Yet though the sensible is other than the
true, it does not follow that the sensible is false, for the sensible
may have an analogy with the intellectual, and not everything that is
not true can correctly be called false. Now I ask whether the
light of the world is the same thing with the light of men, and I
conceive that a higher power of light is intended by the former phrase
than by the latter, for the world in one sense is not only men.
Paul shows that the world is something more than men when he writes to
the Corinthians in his first Epistle:4586
“We are made a spectacle unto
the world, and to angels, and to men.” In one sense, too,
it may be considered,4587
the world is the
creation which is being delivered from the bondage of corruption into
the liberty of the glory of the children of God, whose earnest
expectation is waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.
We also draw attention to the comparison which may be drawn between the
statement, “I am the light of the world,” and the words
addressed to the disciples, “Ye are the light of the
world.” Some suppose that the genuine disciples of Jesus
are greater than other creatures, some seeking the reason of this in
the natural growth of these disciples, others inferring it from their
harder struggle. For those beings which are in flesh and blood
have greater labours and a life more full of dangers than those which
are in an ethereal body, and the lights of heaven might not, if they
had put on bodies of earth, have accomplished this life of ours free
from danger and from error. Those who incline to this argument
may appeal to those texts of Scripture which say the most exalted
things about men, and to the fact that the Gospel is addressed directly
to men; not so much is said about the creation, or, as we understand
it, about the world. We
read,4588
“As I and Thou are one, that they also
may be one in Us,” and4589
“Where I am,
there will also My servant be.” These sayings, plainly, are
about men; while about the creation it is said that it is delivered
from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the
children of God. It might be added that not even when it is
delivered will it take part in the glory of the sons of God. Nor
will those who hold this view forget that the first-born of every
creature, honouring man above all else, became man, and that it was not
any of the constellations existing in the sky, but one of another
order, appointed for this purpose and in the service of the knowledge
of Jesus, that was made to be the Star of the East, whether it was like
the other stars or perchance better than they, to be the sign of Him
who is the most excellent of all. And if the boasting of the
saints is in their tribulations, since4590
“tribulation worketh patience, and patience probation, and
probation hope, and hope maketh not ashamed,” then the afflicted
creation cannot have the like patience with man, nor the like
probation, nor the like hope, but another degree of these,
since4591
“the creation was made subject to
vanity, not willingly, but on account of Him who subjected it, for
hope.” Now he who shrinks from conferring such great
attributes on man will turn to another direction and say that the
creature being subjected to vanity groans and suffers greater
affliction than those who groan in this tabernacle, for has she not
suffered for the utmost extent of time in her service of
vanity—nay, many times as long as man? For why does she do
this not willingly, but that it is against her nature to be subject to
vanity, and not to have the best arrangement of her life, that which
she shall receive when she is set free, when the world is destroyed and
released even from the vanity of bodies. Here, however, we may
appear to be stretching too far, and aiming at more than the question
now before us requires. We may return, therefore, to the point
from which we set out, and ask for what reason the Saviour is called
the light of the world, the true light, and the light of men. Now
we saw that He is called the true light with reference to the sensible
light of the world, and that the light of the world is the same thing
as the light of men, or that we may at least enquire whether they are
the same. This discussion is not superfluous. Some students
do not take anything at all out of the statement that the Saviour is
the Word; and it is important for us to assure ourselves that we are
not chargeable with caprice in fixing our attention on that
notion. If it admits of being taken in a metaphorical sense we
ought not to take it literally.4592
| 4592 Text
corrupt. The above seems to be the meaning. Cf.
chap. 23 init. p. 306. | When we
apply the mystical and allegorical method to the expression
“light of the world” and the many analogous terms mentioned
above, we should surely do so with this expression also.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
